Sunny’s eyes fluttered open. His body felt hot, and there was sothing brushing against his head. His eyes adjusted to the light, finding... nothing except for the sky.
He sat up, taking a look around as he did so. He was in a field of vibrant flowers, the veil of trees surrounding the beautiful field swaying dangerously. A small stream of water carved through field, clear water flowing as it spilled off the edge of the island, creating a waterfall.
Sunny winced as he felt various spots on his body ache. He looked over himself, finding pieces of cloth covering the spots where he had been injured. The Soul Serpent wrapped around his pale naked body, controlling his Essence even while he was unconscious. Ignoring the pain, he stood up, stumbling on his mangled leg.
His body was riddled with holes, each of them varying in size. Sunny was lucky that he hadn’t been pierced in the torso, or he might have lost a whole organ. A mad look glead in his eyes.
Those birds played with him like it was a ga of darts. If he was being honest, he wanted to raze the entire jungle to the ground, burning their ho to ashes.
Sunny wanted to remove every trace of their existence.
At the sound of footsteps, Sunny turned his head. Seele walked over to him with a makeshift sack in her hands. Her light purple eyes flickered across his body, checking to make sure that his wounds weren’t exposed. Her gaze lingered around his abdon, before quickly averting it back to his eyes.
"You should put sothing on."
Sunny realized that he was indeed naked. Honestly, it was preposterous that he had forgotten that fact in the span of a couple seconds. He tried to summon the Mantle of the Underworld, but it didn’t appear. His face paled slightly.
"My armor... did it get destroyed?"
Seele blinked before pointing to a spot on the floor. Following her finger, he found multiple pieces of tal that was littered with holes. The Mantle of the Underworld seed to be cut cleanly in so areas, almost like it was dissected open.
Seele coughed.
"...I didn’t really know how to get it off, but I made sure not to break it permanently."
’By ’I’, she’s talking about her Flaw.’
Sunny nodded, mumbling a quick thanks to Seele before dismissing the armor to his soul sea. He summoned the Puppeteer’s Shroud, the light set of armor covering him from the neck to the tips of his toes.
Seele sat on the ground, opening up her makeshift sack. Within it, the at of slain Nightmare Creatures was displayed, becoming the duo’s al. She stared at the food for a second, her face reddening out of embarrassnt.
"Uh... could you cook this?"
Sunny’s eye twitched. Why would she ask a man who was at death’s door to cook for her? Was she stupid?
Looking at her flushed face, Sunny realized that she probably didn’t know how to cook. It was the sa for him... before he suddenly gained the ability to make als out of the most inedible of Nightmare Creatures. He still didn’t know how he was able to do that...
Sunny sighed before sitting down next to Seele. Scooting over so that their shoulders almost touched, he spoke to her:
"I need so firewood. Once you get back, I’ll show you how to cook these correctly."
"...Really?"
Sunny rolled his eyes.
"Did I stutter? I’ll have you know that I’m the most honest man in the Universe. Two universes, even."
Strangely enough, Seele just smiled at him. She stood up before running back to the jungle to look for firewood. Honestly, Sunny was glad that he didn’t need to help her differentiate between wood suitable for starting a fire and normal wood.
Sunny didn’t judge her for being inept at a basic life skill. He never had the need to cook himself, as he survived off of synthetic food that was able to be eaten right out the package. He suspected that Seele had a similar reason.
Looking down on the countless slabs of at of different shapes and sizes, Sunny imdiately separated the contaminated and non-contaminated Nightmare Creature rations. He summoned the Endless Spring, taking a swig of the bottle of water to quench his thirst.
Looking up at the sky, the sun didn’t move too much from it’s previous position. If Sunny were to guess, it must have been around an hour — maybe two since he had passed out. He didn’t have any issues with bleeding, since [Blood Weave] kept all his blood coagulated in his body. However, he still had been dealt damage to his muscles, bones, and nerves.
Sunny wondered if he would need Saint to carry him back out of the jungle.
He watched as Seele hurried back with a bundle of wood in her arms. Her footsteps were... graceful. The flowers below her were barely disturbed from her movents. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn that they blood just a little bit more...
’...What am I doing?’
Sunny snapped out of his trance. Why was he thinking about such aningless things?
...His head hurt. Had he been hit in the brain? How was he still alive?
"...Sunny?"
The boy in question paused as he stared at Seele. His eyebrows creased when he frowned. His long eyelashes pressed together when he squinted his eyes. He tried to rapidly blink. He tried closing one eye at a ti, alternating between the two...
’Why are their two Seeles?’
Her figure overlapped with that of another. Sunny was able to differentiate between them due to so major differences, but they both still looked greatly like each other.
The first of which was Seele herself, her face having a confused expression etched on it. It was the other Seele that gave him pause, causing him to narrow his eyes at her appearance.
Both her hair and eyes were of a much lighter shade of blue, and her smile seed much too timid.
Sunny wondered if he was actually hit in the head.
[No, you weren’t.]
The second Seele suddenly vanished as if she was never there.
He paused for a second. A voice both internal and external spoke to him, using his own voice... but at the sa ti, it sounded a little deeper.
[Heh. I know, right? Anyways, you weren’t supposed to see that. It was my fault, since I leaned in too much over on your side.]
...Sunny wasn’t sure what was so funny, but he didn’t bother asking.
This was the voice that had spoke to him when he had attempted to kill Sparkle. Countless thoughts rushed through Sunny’s mind, slightly panicking at the sudden reappearance of the voice. Who was it? Why did it talk to him? Was it an enemy?
[...And you could ask all that later. Don’t you have to help your Seele out with a bit of cooking?]
Confused about the voices strange word choice, he complied. Sunny didn’t want to arouse any suspicion from Seele, such as her asking if anything was wrong. He just wanted to go back to the real world, but not only was his connection not restored yet, but he was injured!
[A day in the life of Sunless Vol—nevermind. Anyways, I guess things aren’t too different for us no matter how high or low on the tree we are.]
’Why is he talking about trees?’
Sunny shook his head, causing Seele’s frown to deepen. He instead focused on the matter at hand, pointing at one of the piles of at.
"There are multiple ways to tell when at is unsafe to eat; especially for Nightmare Creatures. It’s possible to eat even poisoned at if you have the ans to cook it, but that would take too much ti to show you."
Although she seed slightly confused from his behavior, Seele paid rapt attention to his instructions. He explained how to discern the difference between contaminated and un-contaminated at.
Seele was a relatively quick learner. Actually, it seed more like she had an innate talent for this. He showed her how to properly roast the at, getting it to the point that it would be cooked but not burnt.
[I would have given that a ten out of ten, but I feel embarrassed that you’re a better cook than . Also, you should have made borscht. Six out of ten.]
’...What’s borscht?’
[Sothing that you’ll probably never get to eat if we consider this weird sci-fi you’re in. I guess being able to leave Earth really changes how society evolved...]
Sunny had no idea what the voice was talking about. It sounded like him, but didn’t act much like him.
[That’s because I’m you, but not you.]
Sunny bit into so at that he held by the bone. It tasted quite good considering the fact that this was Seele’s first ti. The girl herself practically inhaled her own al.
As he chewed his food, he pondered the words of the voice. How could soone be sothing yet not?
’...That didn’t explain a thing.’
[What do you get when you imagine a tree?’]
Sunny blinked.
’...A tree?’
[Close, but not quite. Well, I won’t explain it to you in depth yet. To put it simply, I’m Sunless, but I’m not you. Our lives were entirely different from the very start.]
Sunny narrowed his eyes.
’How does that even make sense? Just because we share the sa na doesn’t an that we’re the sa person.’
Sunless was such an uncommon na that Sunny wouldn’t have been surprised if he was the only one in the universe.
[You probably are. I’m simply not from your Universe.]
Sunny suddenly stopped chewing.
’...What?’
[Our birthdays, first nas, and genetic origins are the sa. But the way that our lives turned out are pretty different. Want to know more?]
Sunny’s eyes lingered at the burning fla in front of him. It was held on top of so rocks, since Seele didn’t want to burn the flowers for whatever reason.
’If you’re not , how do you know so much about ?’
[When the link was established, I was able to look through your mories... no, I lived through them myself. I actually know you better than you know yourself.]
’Well that’s just reassuring. Wait... how did I just lie right now?’
[You know that tree I told you about? Well, your Flaw isn’t powerful enough to break through that tree. It’s like you’re just talking to yourself. Also, if it makes you feel better, the only reason that you can’t access my own mories is because I’m much stronger than you.]
Sunny was a little curious...
’How much stronger?’
[...If I had to guess, probably the equivalent of the Divine Rank for you. We don’t have the Nightmare Spell, and I have no idea how strong a Divine would be, so I could be wrong.]
Sunny ntally groaned. He now had a self-proclaid version of himself from another Universe that was supposedly around the Divine Rank. Not only that, but they didn’t have the Nightmare Spell!
...They didn’t have the Nightmare Spell?
[Stuff just works a bit differently over here. Madn trying to trick trees, crazy girls having crazy fights, and I’m always involved in so way!]
’...I don’t have a clue about what you’re saying. Could you actually explain in detail?’
The voice that claid to be anotherSunless sighed.
[Let’s see... I was born during the eclipse, yadda yadda yadda, parents got killed by a force that wants to wipe out humanity, got thrown in a lab, got powers, used my talents to protect humanity, and that’s a whole novel volu worth of content cramd into a short summary. I even have a last na... well, it was given to by soone else, but it still counts!]
Sunny zoned out after the first five words.
[Oh right. Your sister Rain doesn’t exist.]
Sunny’s pupils dilated.
’...Do you mind repeating that for ?’
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